


Would You Kindly

by Blindmag



Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Coercion, Explicit Language, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:22:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29613558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blindmag/pseuds/Blindmag
Summary: Jack is hurrying through Neptune's Bounty, trying to remember things he's forgotten after a nearly fatal encounter with a Rosie, as Atlas's commands become more demanding and strange.
Kudos: 4





	Would You Kindly

I awaken to that same rank, stale smell that could be anything between leaking chemicals, salty ocean water, or blood. My back is aching and as I sit up it screams. I groan and throw myself against the wall, blinking through a blurry world to try and gather my bearings. I have no recollection of how I got here.  
Rapture, my watery grave, that much I knew. Where in Rapture . . . that was a different story and one that was shimmering behind a wall of pain-induced amnesia.  
I check my weapons and ammo; lower than I expected but enough to get me to shelter if needed. I glance up at the windows and am once again overtaken by the deep, dark, cerulean world that was holding all of us captive. The endless rumbling of water, the roars of vast creatures in the sheer depths, and the endless creaking of metal. Rapture was nothing but an eyesore down here, complete with overgrowth and filled with corpses.  
I cough and taste blood, lowering my gaze to my pack where I dig inside to see if I can find even one health pack. There’s one I locate and within it, some gel that I chug and immediately have to fight heaving it all up.  
“I wouldn’t recommend chugging all of that,” Atlas’s voice makes me jump. I cough again and shoot a glare at the radio beside my boot. “I mean, not unless you want to get sick. Is that your goal?” My lip curls and I hold the radio up to my mouth,  
“What happened?” My voice was gritty; dragged on the floor by its neck gritty.  
“Big daddy showed you the door. Happens to the best of us.” He cleared his throat, “Just heal up and be on your way. He’ll be looking for you, and time is short.”  
“’ Course it is.” I slipped the radio into my back pocket and stood up. It would all come back, surely. I still wasn’t quite where I should be. Big lug must have power thumped me right in the head. Nice of him not to end my life right there. My eyes climb the walls but the propaganda posters and advertisements aren’t giving me an indicator of where I was or where I should be going.  
I stumble through a hallway, the lights dying down being away from any major windows, and I stop short at the sound of two splicers down the hall giggling and fighting over something. All I can gather is that it is “shiny”, whatever they are fighting over. I take careful steps now, my hand gripping my pistol with more intensity. These guys shouldn’t be a problem, they never were before. Junkies were rarely good aims. I peek around the corner to see an area that was once a fishery.  
The wharf is vastly empty, and most of the boxes of fish are completely picked over and bare. The place reeks regardless. I see a few ghost town shop fronts where people had clearly lined up to order fish before. Now there is just scattered trash and no hint of life. I venture a few more steps through the open area, finally spotting the splicers at the lower end of the wharf where a staircase leads down below deck to an area vastly wet and dirty. They are scavenging a corpse, someone of higher social standing. They are picking at her jewelry and holding it up to the dim light to bask in it.  
I watch, somewhat hidden behind a wooden beam. I consider putting a bullet in their head right there, but I listen to their conversation first.  
“Can you believe it? I’ll bet it's real.”  
“It ain’t.”  
“You’re always a doubter. Always.”  
“It ain’t a real diamond, you twat. None of it is.”  
“Rich folk had their ways of getting real gems, I heard.”  
“You heard wrong. You believe everything you hear. That’s why . . . how you always end up fucked.”  
Silence passes for a minute and I could hear Atlas clicking on the radio to speak to me but I shut off the volume before he could. I kneel down and further listen. “I don’t get fucked. I fuck.” The first one argues, a bit offended.  
“Oh, shut up.”  
“Don’t you think we should be quiet? That Rosie’s still around here.”  
“It ain’t around here.”  
“Doubter…”  
I crane my neck suddenly at the light pitter-patter of footsteps. Muted, gentle slaps of bare feet coming down the hall. My breath hitches as I see a little sister emerge from the same hall I had, her dead eyes illuminated with a pale yellow glow. Her grey hand is clutching her Adam extractor like a teddy bear. She hums to herself, and just then there is a hulking slam of footsteps coming. A rhythm I know to be a warning. I glance frantically around, looking for anywhere to hide but if I move, the two idiots will see me.  
The moment the Rosie rounds the corner, I am trapped in its gaze. A big beluga in a diving suit, no longer a man, unsure if it ever was. No thoughts, only an intense drive to protect and fight. And no gentle green light to indicate no danger from the hole in its face, but a wary yellow. It had to be the one that had nearly knocked the life out of me earlier. It thunders through the wharf, following its waif loyally, but its wary gaze does fall upon me. I freeze where I am.  
“Oh, look, there it is!”  
“What?”  
“See, I told ya!”  
The Rosie growls in response to the voices, fixing its gaze to the right at the two morons who now seem as though they were going to face off with it. I shrink down and attempted to scramble away to the cover of darkness but there isn’t much in the big open area. One of the splicers gets out a hypothermic needle glowing neon blue and injects it into his arm. I know this to be an eve hypo, of which I had about five in my pack. He is splicing up to fight the Rosie. I curse under my breath and slip on a wet patch on the wharf.  
The sound makes the Rosie roar at me, one of their warnings. You only get about three of those before that yellow light goes red. My hand is trembling on my gun as it is now fixated on me.  
“Who’s that?” One of the splicers yells.  
“Who cares!” The other screams and runs at the Rosie with a fist full of fire. An explosion blinds me and a flash of heat knocks me back. I cover my eyes, continuing to scramble away. The Rosie’s roar is a cry of pain and anguish, rumbling and vibrating the very dock and beams underneath us. It takes its rivet gun and instead of shooting the splicer that had set him ablaze, it uses the gun like a bat and knocks him straight backward. The splicer hits a wall and isn't moving. The other seems hesitant to continue, but the Rosie has the gun at its hip now, firing six deadly rounds into him and pinning him to a beam. There is a gurgle that omits from the splicer’s mouth but then silence follows. The red light now turns to me. I curse again and bolt down the hall, hearing rivets penetrate the metal of the walls around me. Close. Too close. He aims and gets me right in the leg.  
The pain is indescribable as I sprint for my life and find a ladder that I scramble up as fast as I can.  
Whimpering, and fighting through the pain, I crawl up into a darkened, wet area and fight for my flashlight. The moment it is on, I examine my wound on my leg. The rivet had gone right through, luckily. I tear off some of my shirt and tie off a tourniquet, catching my breath. I turn the radio back on and hear Atlas cursing at me.  
“Goddamn it, where is he?” It’s like he isn’t talking to me, and I sigh.  
“I’m here. Sorry. I needed to mute the noise; I was trying to stealth the-”  
“Oh, I see you did a great job of that! Do you understand that you’re my only hope, boy? You need to be careful and always have that goddamn radio on.”  
I sigh and set myself against a pipe that I found was hot, wincing, and moving away. Flashing the pitiful light around a bit, I see nothing but dark, leaking pipes all around me in the small space. I guess I am in a crawl space for plumbing. No way the Rosie would follow me in here, it couldn’t. I grunt and try crawling my way back towards the wharf, hoping I could get a good look at the daddy from a safe vantage point inside the wall.  
“Did you hear me?” Atlas is getting impatient.  
“Yes, I heard you.” I groan into the radio, “I will keep it on. But you gotta give me time to deal with splicers. If they had heard your voice they both would have shot me.”  
“Not if you’re quick.”  
“Right.”  
I stop at a hole in the wall and gaze out, seeing part of the wharf and still hearing the daddy bumble around. His footing was quick, enraged. I would need to wait until I see light was yellow just to be sure. I glance in my back and rummage for some food as my stomach growls, I don’t remember the last time I ate.  
“Have you put it together yet? Why we’re in Neptune’s Bounty?” Atlas’s voice cut into my calm thoughts.  
“I’m still recovering from the head thump,” I admit. “Isn’t this where Fontaine Fisheries is? I saw that name on one of the boxes out there.”  
“Yes. There’s a man here that can get you better weapons. Peach Wilkins. He’s not right in the head but I’m sure you are quite used to that by now. He’s about as straight as a dog’s hind leg, but he’s loyal.”  
“Loyal to who?” I ask, finishing off a candy bar that chewed like leather.  
“Anyone against Ryan, which is what we want.”  
“Oh.” I sniff and rub at my nose, “And he can help us?”  
“You. He can help you. You need more than that lousy pistol. That daddy down there would shrug off the bullets from it like paper. Now . . . would you kindly be a good boy and go seek him out? Time is short, as I said before.”  
I move and wince against the bullet wound that had calmed in the last few minutes. I fight my way out of the crawl space, arms and legs moving with sudden found strength. As I find an opening, I kick my legs out first and then pull the rest of me out. I glance around and see the daddy has calmed down to yellow light in the face and is following the little sister out of the lower part of the wharf. They head away from Fontaine Fisheries, which I see a sign for to my right.  
“Peach runs the fisheries now that Fontaine is dead,” Atlas says in my ear. “Head for him. He’ll no doubt spout nonsense to you, don’t let it bother you. Take it easy, don’t hurt yourself.”  
I crawl down the wall and finally stand on the rickety wood of the wharf. My stomach is churning, and my head is spinning, but I force myself to keep moving. Surely more of what came before the knockout would keep coming, I tell myself. I crouch down, grunting against the pain of the bullet, striding quietly along the wall and avoiding a group of splicers in a pool of water below the wharf.  
“Good boy.” Atlas’s voice echoed through the radio, “Keep going.”


End file.
